


snapdragons

by esoterpsi, khowardishere (esoterpsi)



Series: the six hanahaki au nobody asked for [2]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: (Literally) Running into Each Other, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And a Hug, Cathy is a Sweetheart, F/F, Gay And On The Floor, Kitty needs help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24542575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esoterpsi/pseuds/esoterpsi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/esoterpsi/pseuds/khowardishere
Summary: kitty begins to heal
Relationships: Katherine Howard/Catherine Parr
Series: the six hanahaki au nobody asked for [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773784
Comments: 25
Kudos: 89





	1. 001

**Author's Note:**

> since a lot of y’all seemed to care about kitty in sunflower!

Breathing a sigh, Kitty looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. She’s pale - paler than usual, she means - and the bags under her eyes are even more pronounced than usual. It’s clearly obvious why; she hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks, maybe even a month. The nightmares won’t let her. 

If her family were still around, they’d say this just “wasn’t like her”. They’d be wrong, Kitty muses as she pulls a pill bottle out of her bag - antidepressants - and takes them, counting them out to make sure she has the right amount even if it’s only two and washing them down with a handful of water from the tap. When her family had been around, she’d been vibrant, bursting with life and energy, carefree like the child she had been. (She guessed she was still a child, but she hardly felt like it. Eighteen and already tired enough to just lay down and sleep forever.) But they’re not around anymore, and this is the new her. 

Now, her once bright colours are dull and grey, and the world she sees around her is much the same. Her roommate Maggie had tried to spruce the tiny shared dorm up, but Kitty had never had the energy. Instead, her room is bare, the beige walls only marked by suspicious stains that had been there long before the two girls moved in. 

Maggie had also tried to encourage Kitty to hang some of her own art up - she’d always been a creative kid, but music hurt too much after what had happened so an art degree was the next best thing - but Kitty doesn’t want to look at her art for any longer than it takes to finish and hand no in. 

As such, the shared apartment seems much more like Maggie’s space than Kitty’s, even though the older girl tries her best to include her. There are photos of her on the fridge, but Kitty can see her smile is forced and her eyes are just as sad as they’ve always been. She doesn’t like to look at them, but she wouldn’t tell Maggie that; she’d take them down, and that would make Kitty feel like a burden and she’s worked too hard to not feel like that to ruin it. So Kitty stays in her room more often than not. In fact, the only time she leaves (apart from class and bathroom breaks, of course) is when she goes to the group Maggie set up. 

A Hanahaki support group. Kitty tried to refuse to go - it’s been years since she had it, and she had the surgery, why does she need to go - but Maggie convinces her that it’s not just for people with the disease, it’s for people recovering. She argues that she is recovered, but it’s obviously a lie. The only problem is that for her it’s much bigger than just the fallout from having a crush that went too far. 

One day, Maggie brings one of her classmates, a theatre student that Kitty remembers has been around the house before. She doesn’t seem to recognise Kitty at her first visit, which suits her just fine; she hardly leaves her room so it makes sense Anne wouldn’t have noticed her. She remembers Anne as being much more boisterous and sarcastic than she is now, though. Anne looks sick, the familiar kind of sick, and Kitty wonders if she just caught It, but Maggie informs everyone that Anne’s been suffering for over a year. 

How long has she been hiding it??

Kitty hid hers for years. To the point she couldn’t breathe at all, and her family made the decision for her. As soon as she’d woken up, her father had demanded to know who had failed his precious daughter so much. She hadn’t wanted to say (he’d told her not to tell anyone, and that meant everyone) but it had came out while she was still groggy and on a never ending stream of painkillers and the next thing she knew she was in a courthouse, testifying while the remains of the snapdragons that had clogged up her lungs stood in front of her as evidence. She was 15, and he was… significantly older. 

She doesn’t say his name anymore. To her, it’s just him. The therapist she went to for two years after what happened tried to help her come to terms with everything, but Kitty insists she just wants to move on, whatever moving on means. 

If this is moving on, Kitty thinks some days, maybe this is the best it gets. 

And then Anne is cured. Kitty didn’t even think that was possible, and she congratulates Anne with the bright and happy rehearsed tones everyone is used to hearing from her. Inside, however, she wants to throw up, because if Anne could be cured why couldn’t she? Why did Kitty, young and naive, have to suffer only for someone else to just waltz in with a success story?

It’s selfish, and Kitty knows it. She should be happy for Anne, who is still just as friendly to her as ever, but she can’t be. Not when every time she sees her envy rears its ugly head in the same shades of green as the clothes Anne constantly wears. 

Kitty thinks to herself, she really shouldn’t have stopped seeing her therapist. But she’d moved away, and she was too scared of the pitying shock she’d get if she opened up to anyone else, so instead, she withdraws even more than usual, convincing herself that the constant grey is recovery and that things could be worse. They could, but she knows Maggie would say that that isn’t the point. That her struggles are equally as important as everyone else’s in the group. 

She is the only one in the group who went through what she did. The others either had the surgery of their own accord or are still suffering, and she knows that neither group will understand how it felt (like the rose-tinted lenses she saw him through were smashed, and she would never be the same). When the flowers are removed, so are the feelings, and to Kitty the numbness was almost worse than the suffocation. Sometimes she convinced herself that she would rather feel the flowers again than stay empty. 

So, when she starts university, long before meeting Anne and seeing her story, Kitty dates around. Around the time she meets Maggie is when she’s with her first real boyfriend - someone who’s clearly just using her for her looks, Maggie says one day after they’re broken up. But that’s the trick. If Kitty can put all her attention into someone who she knows won’t give back, then surely the flowers will come back and she’ll feel like her life means something. 

And then they don’t. He’s too close to him, and being close to him makes Kitty feel dirty. She breaks it off, and tries again. But true to form, it never works, and after Maggie finds out and goes absolutely mental Kitty realises it’s for the better. 

So Kitty doesn’t date. She sits in her room and goes to classes and the support group, and not much else. If asked to describe herself, she would say “plain” or “not that interesting” but what she means is “stagnant”. 

***

It’s a sunny June afternoon when something changes. Kitty is on her way to her last class of the day when someone walks directly into her on the path, sending them both flying. At first Kitty is mildly annoyed, watching her sketchbook and portfolio work go scattering across the grass, but then she hears the “Shit, I’m so sorry!” and her attention is brought to the source of the collision. 

A girl, around the same age as her and slightly shorter-looking, has hit the pavement a few feet away from her. There’s some people giving the two of them (mainly the other girl) weird looks, but this is hardly the weirdest thing university students see daily, so most of them just ignore what’s happening. The girl has brown curly hair that’s swept to the side and held in place with a headband, and extremely apologetic looking eyes behind a pair of what Kitty would usually describe as hipster-ish glasses (the stranger manages to pull them off somehow). She’s wearing a navy blue hoodie and shorts (a weird combo, but Kitty can barely judge what with her all-black ensemble in summer), and Kitty isn’t sure why she’s so focused on the who of the situation while her portfolio is littering the campus green.

“Hey, are you okay?” the other girl calls, snapping Kitty out of her trance, and she realises she should probably answer instead of just staring. 

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” Kitty responds, and wrenches her eyes away to focus on gathering her work up. The stranger scrambles to help, and Kitty guesses that’s pretty nice of her, although it might just be because it was her fault. She’s grateful that the other girl seems more focused on speed than looking at what she’s picking up, because Kitty was half-ready for an unsolicited comment on her art that always tends to happen around complete strangers (it’s why she doesn’t sketch in public the few times she goes out.)

Soon, everything is picked up, and the girl is holding out Kitty’s (slightly grassy - the green must have just been cut) work. Kitty reaches out to grab it, but it’s as if her peer has just noticed the grass because she quickly pulls back to shake it off. It’s a completely menial gesture, one Kitty would never bother to notice, but she finds herself taking note of it nonetheless. Finally she gets all her work back, and she mumbles a thank you, prepared to quickly move on and forget about the encounter, but the girl begins talking and she stops.

“I’m sorry again, that was completely me not watching where I’m going,” she starts, and her tone sounds sincere instead of the apathy Kitty is used to.

“It’s fine, it was an accident.”

“Still, that was a pretty bad fall. Are you hurt?” She’s not, but Kitty spots a graze on her bare knee. The stranger follows her eyes, but she shrugs it off. “Even so, can I make it up to you?”

“What?”

“Oh, shit, I completely forgot. It would be really weird of me to ask that without even introducing myself. I’m Catherine, but people just call me Cath or Cathy.”

Suddenly, shocking even herself, Kitty finds herself giggling.

“What?” Cathy asks.

“My name’s Katherine too - with a K, though.”

Cathy starts to laugh too. “That’s a coincidence and a half - what are the chances of two Catherines literally running into each other?”

Kitty stops giggling, but there’s still a small smile on her face at the absurdity of the situation. “My friends usually call me Kitty.”

“Kitty? That’s adorable,” Cathy says, but it’s without the usual patronising tone people use (a lot of people think her nickname is immature - classmates, teachers, the like.) and Kitty feels her face warm with the positive attention. “Anyway, can I make that awful first impression up to you?”

“Sure - wait, I have class in…” Kitty pulls out her phone, suddenly remembering where she was going when all this happens, “three minutes ago.”

“Oh, it can be later, if you’re not busy!” Cathy reassures her, “oh, and if you want to. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”

“Later is fine, I don’t have any plans,” Kitty responds, leaving out the “ever” she’s used to adding when she talks to herself. Now that she’s reminded herself of class, however, there’s a slight urgency. 

“I’ll walk you to class,” Cathy says, “Art, right? I tried not to look at your stuff, my friend Maria is an artist too and she doesn’t like people seeing her stuff without her permission. Sorry, I’m probably oversharing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kitty responds, and she means it. There’s a comfortable silence as the two walk up to the art building, and Kitty finds herself feeling a lot lighter than she did. When they get to the door, Kitty tells Cathy when her class finishes, and goes into her class with a small smile.


	2. 002

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally finished this!

From there, Kitty and Cathy form a fast friendship, much to the surprise of both of them. As many times as it happens, Kitty is always shocked to spot Cathy hanging around her classrooms when her lesson is over, usually with some form of beverage (she managed to coax Kitty's favourite - one of the sweetest iced tea combinations the baristas at the nearest coffee shop could come up with - out of her about a week after their first hang out). Cathy herself seems to only drink black coffee, claiming it's how she gets the most caffiene out of it, and Kitty gives her a vaguely worried glance.

Cathy's majoring in Creative Writing, Kitty finds out, and her personality seems to completely reflect that. Cathy doesn't seem the most social (although she's way more amiable to company than Kitty has been) and she's off in her own world a lot. Kitty doesn't mind; the two can sit in comfortable silence all day in her opinion. That's not to say she doesn't appreciate when Cathy talks to her - when one of her interests is brought up, Kitty swears that Cathy literally lights up. She (Cathy, that is) often jokes that she "can and will talk for hours unless stopped." Kitty doesn't want to stop her. 

Essentially, Cathy is everything Kitty doesn't think she is. And Kitty finds that she isn't as put off by that as she expected. She noticed this even on their first meeting; if their places were reversed, Kitty would have just squeaked an apology and gotten out of there as quickly as possible. Instead, Cathy had stayed, embracing the awkwardness (seriously, this girl is impossible to embarrass, Kitty thinks) and even invited her for coffee afterwards. At the coffee shop, after Kitty's lesson, Cathy had been like a breath of fresh air. At first, Kitty didn't know why, and she'd stayed up that night wondering what was so different about this random girl who'd literally ran into her. And then she realized.

Everyone in Kitty's life seemed to walk on eggshells around her, and as much as they tried to be nice, she always felt their pitying stares. "Don't get too close, she's depressed," or "she's been through a lot," or even "We don't know how to fix her." Everyone who knows her either treats her like a child who needs protection or some kind of case study, over-analyzing her actions to find a "reason".

Cathy was completely different. And Kitty didn't know how that worked, because she'd thought everyone within a three mile radius could see the shadow over her like a huge "stay away" sign.

It was refreshing to meet someone who didn't treat her like glass. And that isn't to say Cathy is abrasive, or rude; the girl had avoided invading her privacy on their first meeting without any prompting, and she'd definitely seen Kitty on some of her worse days (it was funny that since Cathy, Kitty had even had better days. Before, it was just days,) and been more watchful of what she'd said. The difference, Kitty had realized a month into their friendship, is that Cathy sees her as more than just her bad days, Even Maggie, who's been there since the beginning and has been more help than she could possibly know, seems wary around her at best.

That was the same day Kitty felt something bloom inside her chest, and for a moment she was terrified, because _not again._ She didn't work this hard only for the first person to help her out of her shell to unintentionally shove her back in. She remembered the choking, and the suffocating, and the way the snapdragons had twisted around her esophagus in vivid detail.

Once she had her breathing under control, she was surprised to find that her lungs were as clear as ever. It hadn't been another seed planting itself in her lungs. It was something completely different.

She had scrambled for her phone, and read through her texts with Cathy. The last conversation they'd had was something mundane, just Cathy asking if Kitty had eaten (and that would feel like a loaded question coming from anyone but her) but there it was again - a warm, fluttering feeling. Nothing like the confusing and sinister sensation Kitty had felt with him, where it had felt like her insides were all twisted together in a way that was far from pleasant. This couldn't be further from that.

No, this felt more like what was described in the cheesy teen movies she'd went through a phase of binging when she'd been numb and wanted to feel anything at all (it hadn't worked at the time, but with this new discovery Kitty felt like they were worth another watch). She was happier in general, she knew that, but there was something else, and while she knew without a doubt what it was she was almost scared to think about it.

Yes, it felt different, but was it ever?

Of course it is, Kitty thinks then, Cathy is nothing like the others.

She's probably fucked.

***

From there, Kitty begins to notice more about Cathy. The way she scrunches her face up in concentration when she's trying to remember the specific details of a story she's telling Kitty, the nervous fidgeting when she waits for Kitty's reaction, and even the way she doesn't seem to find anything weird about Kitty's staring. In fact, she embraces it, and every time she sees Kitty looking at her she just beams.

Kitty wonders if she should be worried about the fact that her lungs are as clear as ever. The logical conclusion would be to assume that Cathy feels the same as she does, but Kitty can't help but wonder why she would. Cathy's observant, sure, but she met Kitty when she was at one of her worst points and that's hardly what Kitty would consider attractive. Cathy deserves better, she thinks. Because even before she realized, she'd always known that the other girl was practically radiant in her eyes. Kitty had always noticed the way the sun caught her curly hair (usually pulled back or up to keep it out of her face and off her neck, especially on warm days), the sound of her laugh when Kitty caught her off-guard with a sarcastic quip.

Yeah, she deserves better than some random depressed girl who can barely smile at her (extremely funny) jokes most days.

And, as such, Kitty decides she's going to do everything she can to prevent whatever is between her and Cathy from blossoming past friendship. Because hopefully, Cathy will find someone better, who deserves her more than Kitty does.

(Out of sheer curiosity, Kitty refreshes her research on Hanahaki, just in case she's forgotten some detail that said she can't get it twice - it just ends up telling her what she already knows - Cathy probably likes her back, and all she can do is wonder "why?")

From there, it's as simple as any friendship Kitty's had that's ended up even slightly meaningful - she pulls back. It crosses her mind briefly that she's just making things worse for herself by not just confessing to Cathy, but she reminds herself that it's for Cathy's own good, and the thought that she's helping the other girl spurs her on. It starts small, because she doesn't want Cathy thinking she's done anything wrong. Kitty texts her, telling her she has an exam coming up so she might be hanging out with Cathy less (an excuse that won't make Cathy feel like it's her fault), and technically it's not a lie. There are art exams coming up fairly soon, but Kitty's always been the type to put it off to the last minute and then power through the entire project in one go. It's not the healthiest method, but her grades have never suffered from it.

Cathy texts back an affirmative, full of emojis and abbreviations, and wishes her luck. It gets a small smile out of Kitty, but that's overshadowed by the pang of guilt, because while she's not lying to Cathy she feels like she is. 

A few days later, Cathy asks if Kitty wants to see a movie - and she does - but Kitty politely turns it down. Seemingly taking it in her stride, Cathy just shrugs.

"It's okay, you've got that big project coming up!" And if that didn't hurt more than an accusation, because it's not like Kitty was really going to work on her art, right?

That night, Kitty stands in front of a canvas in her room. Lying to Cathy feels too bad; the other girl's done nothing but be lovely to her, so she might as well do something good with the time that she's clearing for herself. There's only one problem - Kitty has no idea what to paint. Sure, she's been working on a portfolio, and she has a general theme planned out (art class isn't just painting whatever you want that day, there has to be meaning, something Kitty embraced whenever the rest of her life felt disconnected and chaotic.)

She just needs to find a subject matter. 

Instead of painting, Kitty spends the hours she would have been out with Cathy sitting on her bed scrolling on her phone. She'd started out looking for inspiration, she really had, but the pull of aimless social media scrolling had been too much and the next thing she knew it was 11pm and she was four hours deep in the drama of some social media celebrity she'd never heard of. Realising the time, Kitty swore softly to herself and figured now was as good of a time as any to sleep.

Before she does, however, she checks her phone a final time, just in case she had any missed messages from Cathy. Zero show up, and Kitty ignores the pang she felt from that.

The next week continues like this, with Kitty politely turning down Cathy and wondering why each time makes her feel worse and worse. She tries not to let her eyes catch on the way Cathy's brows furrow slightly as she frowns, disappointment clear on her face for a second before she bounces back to her regular sympathetic smile. She doesn't asked about the art Kitty is supposedly busy with, and for that Kitty is glad because she's done exactly nothing so far. However she looks at her previous ideas, nothing feels right anymore, and most of her time at home is spent pointedly ignoring the still blank canvas in the middle of the room. 

It's weird; she's supposed to be distancing herself from Cathy, and yet the other girl is all she could think about when they're apart. It sounds ridiculously cliche, but Kitty can't drag her mind away from wondering what Cathy's doing without her - is she sad that she can't be around Kitty? Probably not, Kitty thinks, it's probably much less effort. Even if Cathy's never complained before, she's got to resent her a little bit for how down Kitty is all the time.

One night, about two weeks into her attempts, Kitty stands in front of her canvas and starts to paint.

She's barely aware of what she's doing, and she is hardly even looking at what she's painting. But she can't sit and look at the blank space anymore; it reminds her of how much she's deceiving Cathy, using it as an excuse, and the productive part of her brain tells her to just get it over with. She's technically skilled, and that's what the teachers want after all, and that's all there is to it.

Only half-focusing on the canvas, Kitty paints blue eyes, brown curls. She may as well, she thinks, indulge herself one last time, and she's hardly surprised by how easily her memory of Cathy forms an image - she does, after all, spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at her when possible. Even before she'd realized what she'd felt she had. It just came naturally to her, the same way painting does now. It's acrylic (Maggie hates the smell of oil paints, so that's not even an option, and anyway Kitty finds them easier to work with.) so it dries quickly and before she knows it it's been hours and she's almost done.

She wonders if Cathy would find it creepy that Kitty's refusing to spend time with her just to paint her. She probably would, Kitty thinks, but she'd pretend otherwise because she wouldn't want to upset Kitty. Another reason Kitty isn't good for her. 

This carries on for a week or so longer. It hurts Kitty more than expected, but she reminds herself of her plan and how it's the best idea she's possibly ever had (at least, it's shutting up the voice in her head telling her she's selfish, because what is more selfless than sacrificing your own happiness for the one you lo- like's?)

And then Cathy finds her.

It's four in the afternoon, and Kitty is just leaving her final class of the day, and is planning on spending the evening in her room, as she's gotten used to again. What she hasn't planned on is Cathy waiting for her. She spots her near the end of the lesson through the door and Kitty swears her stomach drops into her knees with sheer panic, because Cathy isn't smiling. Cathy always smiles, even when she's talking about how she had the worst day.

For the final five minutes of the lesson, Kitty can't focus. She's too busy trying to figure out a way she can sneak past Cathy, because she has no doubt in her mind that Cathy's waiting for her. Nobody else in this specific class knows her, unless it's through Cathy's _other_ art friend, and she's never greeted any of them in the past. Maybe she could wait back and pretend to talk to her professor about something. Said professor is a short, grumpy man who could most easily be summed up by "elitist" in terms of his views on art, but he's always seemed to take a shine to Kitty. Not in the way other men have, either, and Kitty would say that he's the closest thing she has to a father figure in university. She could ask him for some criticism on her work, sneak in a mention of an artist she knows he despises, and set him off on a rant she knows will last more time than necessary.

Even as she comes up with the idea, Kitty brushes it aside. Cathy would wait. Of course she would, she's done it before. A talkative professor isn't enough to ward her off, plus if she leaves alone she will have to be confronted.

The best option, Kitty decides, is to sneak out with the rest of the class, in the small crowd that forms, and hope Cathy doesn't notice her. Even if she hates crowds, the side profile she can just about catch a glimpse of does not seem happy and even though she knows it's probably for a valid reason, she finds herself preemptively shying away.

The bell rings, and it's time to put her plan into action. She's hunched up, and she angles herself to the opposite side of the crowd that she knows Cathy is standing by. She tries not to make eye contact, but nothing can stop her from stopping dead when she's called out.

"Kitty."

"Hi, Cathy." Kitty kicks herself - was that really the best thing to say in this situation?

"Can we talk?"

Kitty could say she's busy - prolong this for another day.

"Sure."

***

They're sitting in the cafe where this all started, and Kitty feels awful. Cathy offered to buy her a drink, and when Kitty said she was fine she insisted, which she never does. Cathy isn't the type to push. Cathy looks duller than usual, and Kitty's heart sinks when she realizes it was probably her who did this. Soon, though, the drinks are ready and there's nothing putting off the conversation between them except the empty air.

Cathy speaks first, her fingers drumming on the table.

"I want to apologise."

What?

"What?"

Cathy hasn't made eye contact with her since the art classroom, and Kitty regrets everything.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"Cathy, I- what? You haven't made me uncomfortable," Everything Kitty says has a questioning tone to it.

"I haven't? But I thought-"

"You didn't do anything wrong," Kitty rushes to say, the first proper statement she's said since this began.

"Why have you been avoiding me, then?"

Shit.

Kitty could lie. She could say she genuinely has been busy, or that something unrelated got in the way of their friendship. But finally looking into Cathy's eyes, she can't bring herself to. Instead, she sighs, and steels herself.

"I... didn't want you to be stuck with me."

Cathy makes a noise, choked and quiet. Kitty carries on, though.

"You're an amazing person, and I'm just, you know, me."

Cathy looks concerned now, and in some ways it hurts more than the dull look in her eyes from before.

"Kitty, you're amazing too." Kitty makes a noncommittal noise, and Cathy sighs, leaning forward until Kitty can't look anywhere but her face (not that she could anyway). "When I first met you, and I literally ran into you, my first thought was 'Woah.' My second was 'Shit, I just knocked this poor girl over', but," she lets out a small, stilted laugh, "then I got to know you. And I realized that you were just as lovely on the inside as you were on the outside."

"Is this really happening?" Is all Kitty can think to say. She's bright red - she'd guessed Cathy might feel the same about her, but to have the other share her feelings so openly, she just wanted to hide under her hair until she was a normal temperature again.

At the very least, the tension in the cafe seems less, and Kitty is somewhat more relaxed. Part of her, the part that's made her decisions for the past month is going wild.

"When you stopped hanging out with me," Cathy starts, grimacing slightly at her own word choice, "I thought you'd figured it out."

"I did," Kitty says, rushing to continue when she sees hurt flash in the other girl's eyes, "But I wasn't- I didn't mean to make you think I was uncomfortable." She doesn't know whether she can outright say it, but Cathy seems to relax in understanding. "I told myself that if we stopped being friends you'd find someone better."

Cathy tenses again, and Kitty finds that everything starts to spill out of her, all the reasoning that she's been sabotaging herself with for the last few weeks. At times, Cathy looks like she's going to interject (mainly when Kitty says something self deprecating), but she holds her tongue until finally, what must be ten minutes later, Kitty stops.

 _This is it,_ Kitty thinks, _She's realizing just how fucked up I am._

And then all she can feel is warmth. It takes her a moment to realize that Cathy's hugging her, harder than she has before. It takes her another moment to hug back, realizing just how touch starved she is by the way her entire body freezes under Cathy's grip.

"Kitty," Cathy mumbles, and Kitty listens, half focusing on the way the other girl is practically straddling her on the sunken cafe sofa, "There is nothing you can do that'll push me away."

And for once, Kitty believes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was honestly just meant to be a short spin-off to sunflower, and somehow it's ended up almost twice as long. i really hope if any of you made it to the end that you enjoyed this fic, as late as this update was!
> 
> i'm also sorry for the distinct lack of jane and anna in this story and the last one - they do exist in this au, promise! if you guys want to see anything about them in the future, lmk!


End file.
